Where's My Happily Ever After?

My head was spinning as Edwin picked me up off of my seat on the ice and carried me off of the rink entirely before setting me down. Manny was skating circles still, but she came closer, thinking she was being sneaky.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered, keeping my eye on the snooping little girl. Edwin had a grim look on his face and he was glaring at me.

“What’s wrong?” he repeated incredulously. “What’s wrong? You could have killed my child! You’re done skating!” His tone said it all: end of discussion.

“It’s my kid, too, Edwin!” I yelled, pulling myself from him. He lashed out and caught my wrist. I whimpered. “Please. Not in front of Monique.”

“If you weren’t an idiot we wouldn’t have this problem!” he hissed in my ear, acting as though he was kissing my cheek. He was surely a good actor for a little girl.

“I’m sorry I wanted Monique to have fun and get her mind off of her family!”

“Don’t act as though I’m the bad guy here!” he spat in my face, jerking me tightly to him.

“Mommy? Daddy? Are we leaving?”

I opened my mouth to say no, but Edwin contradicted me and told her to give the skates back to the nice man at the entrance. She did so with her eyes on the ground as she stumbled awkwardly past us. I glanced to Edwin again and his eyes only hardened.

“Jade, go to the car.”

“But—”

“Did I fucking stutter?” he screamed, not caring that all the children around us were gaping.

“No, you didn’t,” I mumbled, jerking off my skates and slinking away from him. I gave my skates back to the man and he asked me if I had fun. I told him, “It’s hard to have fun skating when it feels like you’re burning in Hell.” The poor guy had only furrowed his brow and let me pass. I grasped Manny’s tiny hand and pulled her outside.

“Is Daddy mad at me?” she whispered, a fragile look about her.

“No, baby, he’s just stressing out about the baby is all. He doesn’t want anything to happen to your baby brother and he’s going crazy.” She giggled and pulled from me to skip to the car.

“Well I can’t wait to meet my baby brother,” she chirped out, buckling into her seat. I sat in the passenger’s seat again. “So what’s his name?”

“I’m not sure yet. Your daddy wants to name him Lazarus. He thinks all of my names are dumb, the jerk. What do you think of Noah?”

“I like Avery! Avery Tristan Kaiser.”

“I’ll run that to him,” I promised, leaning back to ruffle her hair.

Edwin came into the car, silent, and turned on the engine before driving out of the parking lot a bit too quickly than I would have liked.

“Honey, can you slow down?” I begged, gripping my seat.

“You’re fine,” he snapped.

“Edwin!”

He turned to look at me, a glare in his eyes. “Don’t fucking start with me!”

“Edwin! The light is red!”

He drove anyway and I sighed, glancing out my window.

“Oh my God!” I screamed, trying to unbuckle my seat belt as I saw a car coming right at us. Edwin glanced over and I saw something I’d never seen in his eyes before: pure terror. I screamed as...

I don’t remember. All of a sudden I felt like I was floating, free of the physical world. All around me was white, but there was a sudden flash of darkness and the calmness dissipated with the light.

I don’t know what happened, but surely it couldn’t be good...